Lord Mandelson photographed in his underwear is one of those images that will not be forgotten it says more about something than a magnum opus on the subject ever could. I suspect this is going to be sub-optimal for Sir Keir Starmer and Labour’s polling in the short term at least, I suspect Sir Keir Starmer finds the whole scandal a bit pants. TSE
Good old Mandy! There is so much to unpick and enjoy in the Epstein revelations – from the state of Mandy’s underwear to potential criminality: breaches of the Official Secrets Act, the Nolan Principles of Public Life (largely ignored by people in public life), passing on of confidential information, possibly also unpublished price sensitive information and, who knows, insider dealing on the back of it, corruption, misconduct in public office, tax shenanigans and so on. The commentators and journalists will…
I always thought I would cover stories about Peter Mandelson because that is de rigueur for him but I never thought I wonder end up covering the stories that have emerged, I am not surprised the police have been asked to investigate, nor did I think his underpants would become so prominent. This reflects poorly on Sir Keir Starmer but David Cameron survived Andy Coulson but the real question is what on earth happens with the vetting in the Foreign…
The Betfair market looks very pleasing for anybody who backed the Greens at 6/1 yet I think there could be some value in backing Labour. I suspect the infamous, statistically irrelevant, Find Out Now poll has allowed Labour to frame the narrative as a two horse race between themselves and Reform, if the by-election is framed as stopping Reform then Labour could profit, particularly the views of the Reform candidate on those he considers British. TSE
The fallout from that Find Out Now poll is a bit of a mess, over a decade ago a pollster told ‘you’re only as good as your last poll’, on that basis it’s not good for Find Out Now, but for them there’s a few elections coming up for them to recover as I cannot recall ever a pollster saying their poll isn’t statistically signficant. One positive from this is that it shows why the British Polling Council and their…
A quick reminder about the 2026 PB Predictions Competition. To enter you simply need to post your answers to the following 12 questions onto the site before the end of January with the hashtag #competition somewhere in the post to help the scorer (me) find your entry. Or, you can private message me @Benpointer with your entry answers. Questions are weighted equally with 20 points for a correct or a closest answer and 10 points for a near miss,…
Every week it seems another bank is announcing another round of branch closures but this polling shows why as a majority of Brits visit less a branch less than once a year. With cash being less prevalent it makes sense branch footfall has collapsed Becoming cashless also has many indirect benefits, the decline of cash has many benefits for example it has saved the lives of many children as this article shows ‘Decline of cash credited for drop in NHS…
There’s argument this row is political smokescreen, make fuss of postponements to obscure more important issues voters are upset about. Let’s explore what’s really going on. What bothers voters even more than postponements? I argue it’s cuts to their services at same time as their council tax’s getting hiked. Councils of every colour are doing exactly this – cutting services whilst hiking taxes. In the old days local authority elections were based on: we will give you decent services you…